Mobile communications protocols such as the 4G-LTE protocol currently in use have a frame/half-frame/subframe structure. Included in that frame/half-frame/subframe structure are synchronization signals. It is important in decoding a mobile communications transmission to be able to locate the synchronization signals, which carry information regarding frame boundaries, cell identities, carrier frequency, etc.
A number of factors may increase the difficulty of identifying the synchronization signals. For example, synchronization signals are susceptible to low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) and fading environments (e.g. when a user is far away from any wireless tower or traveling through a tunnel) and are thus more difficult, to identify under these conditions. Furthermore, identifying synchronization signals may involve computationally expensive and time-consuming processes, which may drain the battery life of a user equipment, or may require a non-trivial amount of intermediate storage, which may affect the form factor as well as the battery life of a user equipment.